Women, feminism, and geek culture

Quick hit: RMS at Wikimania

I’m in Buenos Aires this week for Wikimania, the annual conference for the Wikimedia community. Also in town: Richard Stallman. Today he gave a public talk at the Teatro Presidente Alvear about Free Software, and reports are that he made his virgin joke again, only this time in a non-gender-specific way. For whatever it’s worth, one woman who was present told me, unprompted, that she found it weird and uncomfortable.

Tomorrow morning he’s keynoting the conference itself. I’ll be sitting in the front left area with a bunch of other geek feminist types. If you’d like to join us and see what transpires, please do!

On the contrary, pointing out to someone when you think they are making a mistake is one of the great acts of a friend.

Think not those faithful who praise all thy words and actions; but those who kindly reprove thy faults. :Socrates

And FWIW, ‘feminazi’ is a slur word that grossly misrepresents feminists, their goals and attitudes. I’ve never met a feminist who hated on me for being a man. You might want to have a look at the Feminism 101 blog; there’s a lot of good pointers there.

I’m actually waiting for part 2. I’m morbidly curious as to how he’s managed to “non-gender-specific” an inherently genderfied concept “virginity” especially when it involved the “taking of” said “virginity.” Of course, by managed I do mean “failed miserably at and has still made his audience uncomfortable through a sexualized joke in a professional environment.”

I’m not convinced either, but it is better than the former. Certainly less grunchy for me, but you know, it’d still make me squirm uncomfortably if I was not familiar enough with the people around me to know that I had a hope in heck of getting out of a situation.

I’m pretty sure that the wannabe joke became a regular part of the routine because he believes people have loved it for the past 15 years. Sadly, his predominantly male audience probably did (and probably do still) love it. That positive reinforcement stuff — he’s had it.

Don’t blame it on men, or a man. Blame it on male privilege. Blame it on society for letting them get to the point at which men generally have to concentrate pretty damned hard, or have been in a situation (such as the prison system), to begin to understand what it is like to be put into a position of sexual vulnerability.

Valerie Solanas tried to commit murder. Skud wishes to express dissatisfaction about a speech that makes her feel vulnerable. I’m failing to see how this comparison, that you made, is valid.

Not every single person who has ever identified themselves as feminist has done the cause justice. Implying that the legacy of these people is the standard of the entire movement is beyond insulting. Stop doing it.

Someone can be very charitable and still not have a clue with respect to appropriate behaviour. We’re not saying Stallman is bad (although personally I wonder if he’s living in the real world) we’re just saying that this ‘joke’ is not appropriate in a professional arena and makes people uncomfortable.

Although I’ve not been subject to Stallman’s inappropriateness I have been in a conference and been made uncomfortable. It annoyed me enough that I didn’t look past the inappropriateness of an almost naked woman parading across the big screen rather than the technology supposedly being demonstrated. And I wasn’t the only one.

JakiChan: The first one is a somewhat defensible political point, even if I am not willing to care enough about it. The second one is somewhat true, but so what? Are you going to leave modern society and communications? I feel I’ve done enough by eschewing the iPhone (ugh, Apple).